00:00Let me first congratulate Essence Magazine for 24 years of this Essence Music Festival.
00:15Michelle E. Banks and her team has brought us together to celebrate our, not only our creativity,
00:26but our productivity for 24 years.
00:31It started many years ago when Essence started Black-Owned with Ed Lewis and others.
00:39It then went to white corporate, and now we're here the first year,
00:44thanks to Brother Dennis, it is Black-Owned again.
00:52But we must support what is Black-Owned.
00:56Because we are in very serious times.
01:00We are in the age of a man that has made it clear that he intends to use us as the backboard
01:10for backlash on everything we've achieved.
01:15In two days, Donald Trump will appoint someone to the Supreme Court.
01:22The ramifications of that is not just some Washington talk.
01:28They can reverse the moves made with affirmative action.
01:33They've already said they want to take race out as a factor.
01:36They can turn back voting rights.
01:38They can turn back many of the things that people suffered and died for.
01:44Didn't nobody donate to us the right to vote?
01:50People died to give us the right to vote.
01:54People went to jail to give us the right to vote.
01:57People suffered to give us the right to vote.
02:00And some of you are sitting there not voting.
02:05You need to leave here and register everybody in your house, in your building, on your block.
02:16Do you realize when they started the voting rights campaign, they bombed churches.
02:22Four little girls was killed in Sunday school one Sunday morning, trying to get the right to vote.
02:29They killed Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner, two Jews and a black, registering voters in Mississippi.
02:37And here we are, Medgar Evers shot in his own driveway to give us the right to vote.
02:43And here we are 50 years later, nobody bombing your church, nobody shooting you in the driveway, just too lazy and ungrateful.
02:54Sitting around talking about Hillary didn't turn me on.
03:05Well, Harriet Tubman turned me on, Mary McLeod Bethune turned me on, Martin Luther King turned me on.
03:13I didn't need Hillary to turn me on.
03:16I was turned on by those that suffered for me, and I don't care whether I love who's running, I like being free.
03:25This Supreme Court, you must call your senators.
03:34Tell them when President Obama nominated a Supreme Court justice, they stalled.
03:41They wouldn't even meet with his nominee.
03:44Well, it's time for the Democrats to show some guts.
03:48Time for them to show some backbone.
03:52Since you wanted to set up a McConnell rule, no Democrat ought to meet with anybody nominated by Trump until after the election.
04:08You also know that Trump is appointing people that may decide whether a president can be indicted or not.
04:19So whoever's nominated needs to commit that they will recuse themselves from any decision on Trump.
04:28We have criminal justice stuff that we face.
04:31I was just talking to my little brother, Meek Mill, who's coming out in a little bit.
04:35We are looking at our young men and women that are locked up in jail because you have a criminal justice system that allows them to give life sentencing for nonviolent drug offenses.
04:54We got to turn that around.
04:58You cannot give people 30, 40 years for selling some reefer that now you're making legal in some states.
05:10If you can't stand up for Meek Mill, then you can't stand up for your little cousin.
05:17And let me tell you something.
05:19We must fight this, but we've got to deal with the court.
05:23That's why they're trying to distract with Congresswoman Waters, talking about they didn't like what she said because she would chair the Financial Services Committee of Congress.
05:34They don't want her over the money because they are doing all they can to break down regulation on the money.
05:42We are going to stand up for Maxine.
05:45We're going to stand up.
05:47If the Democrats try to block her from the chairmanship, we know how to vote for you and we know how to vote against you.
05:58We play offense and defense.
06:03Let me say lastly, this whole battle around immigration, a lot of us talking about, well, they taking our jobs.
06:14First of all, we were doubly unemployed before anybody ever came across the border.
06:22Don't let them divide you.
06:26Make it real clear.
06:28There are two borders to the United States.
06:31There's the Mexican border and the Canadian border.
06:35Why is Trump only messing with the Mexican border?
06:41Because he knows America would not tolerate him taking a white baby out of the arms of a white mother.
06:51I went down to Texas, to McAllen, where the border is and where they're holding some of them.
07:00And a reporter said to me, Reverend Al, why are you here?
07:04I said, one, it's a civil rights issue, that everybody ought to be treated by the same standard.
07:10But secondly, I'm here because the evangelical Christians that are supporting Trump need to read the Bible rather than quote the Bible.
07:23According to my Bible, when Jesus was a baby, the Bible said, Mr. Evangelical Christian, the Bible said an angel came and told Joseph to get the baby and his mother and escape to Egypt because they're going to kill him.
07:44And I'm here because they're going to kill him, which meant the baby Jesus had escaped to Africa as a refugee to seek refuge in an African nation.
07:56The reason I stand up for babies from Mexico is I worship a refugee from Bethlehem.
08:08And that refugee that gives me inspiration to stand up against the wicked.
08:16You don't have faith just being on your knees.
08:19You have faith getting up off your knees and doing some work.
08:23It's time to stand up and put faith in action.
08:28It's time to stand up and fight for our children, fight for our equal rights, fight to preserve our civil rights.
08:36If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray and then have to pray and turn from your wicked ways, then, right then, right then, you will hear from heaven.
08:54I will hear the land.
08:56Trump, you got the Senate.
08:58Trump, you got the Congress.
09:00Trump, you got the White House.
09:03But your arms are too short to box with God.
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